Tracking Down the Past: The Memory Book (‘Houshamadyan’) Genre - A Preliminary Bibliography -

Author: Mihran Minassian, 17/01/2014 (Last modified 20/01/2014)

Translators: Hrant Gadarigian, Shogher Margossian

In the following pages, we will attempt to present a concise listing of memory books (“houshamadyan”) and similar publications dedicated to the general history of Western Armenia, Cilicia, and areas adjacent to Istanbul.

Following the genocide, various individuals and compatriotic associations that sprung up in different diasporan communities assumed the worthy task of saving the history and culture from being lost, and handing it down to future generations. In this fashion, those individuals sought to remember and restore the life of the native village or town in all its facets and detail.

The authors of these books were intimately familiar with their former towns or villages, and often wrote their works based on memory. Frequently, however, they also had auxiliary printed and handwritten materials available to them, along with a variety of other sources. Sometimes, they were also assisted in their work by individuals from the same native community. If the native environs no longer existed, they thought, it was necessary to resurrect them through literature and to save that which was possible.

Thus, during the 1920’s, the first such volumes were published, and the work continued for decades, all the way to the 1970’s and partially afterwards. These volumes generally depicted the daily life of a given village or town. Usually, they started with general geographic notes of the area, followed by its past and present history, the daily customs of the resident Armenians, their social life, trades, traditions, ethnography, folklore, dialect, church life, political parties, education and cultural life, the press, print houses, military battles, the genocide, eviction and exile, compatriots now living in the diaspora and compatriotic unions, prominent community members and their successes, etc.

We come across books written by just one individual, for example Kyuregh Khrayian’s Tzovk-Gölcük and Grigor H. Mkhalian’s Partizakn u Partizaktsin. But sometimes there are volumes based on collaborative effort that, despite having a general editor, are comprised of works from various authors writing on a topic or topics familiar to them. Here, we can note Gevorg Sarafian’s Patmutyun Antepi Hayots and Aram Sahakian’s Dyutsaznakan Urfan yev ir Hayordinere.

Then again, there were times when an individual or compatriotic union of a given region assumed the task of writing a work on their own—of collecting and assembling the material—and subsequently handed the job of finalizing and editing the volume to others. The finished product was then delivered for publication. Examples of such books are Arshak Alboyajian’s volumes dedicated to Kayseri/Kesaria, Malatya, and Tokat/Kutina; Vahé Haig’s volume on Yozgat; Arakel Patrik’s twin volumes on Sivas/Sebastia; and Andranik Polatian’s Arapgir work.

During the compilation of this list, we faced certain difficulties, namely, which books to include in the memory book genre, and which to leave out. We came across books that did not correspond to the memory book content noted above, although at the same time they did not differ completely from it. While they touched upon one or more aspects regarding native villages or towns, their history, and episodes of collective memory, and are important sources of the regions they covered, they nevertheless were outside the definition of the memory book genre. We also appreciate the difficultly in defining the parameters of such a list.

Consequently, having taken into account the number of pages allocated to us here, we have left out the following types of books:

eye-witness accounts of the genocide and books dealing with the Hamidian (1895-96) and Cilicia (1909) massacres preceding it.

memoirs of those who participated in the Armenian revolutionary movement (“fedayee” movement figures) or volumes devoted to their activities)

memoirs of individual Western Armenians, whether political figures, clergy, or regular folk.

historiographical-academic works not based on the author’s memoirs (there is a rich collection of such books printed in Yerevan starting in the 1950’s)

volumes of folklore (fables, songs, etc.)

individual volumes devoted to dialects, with the exception of those that also include chapters regarding the history and ethnography of the region.

various internet websites that have appeared during the past few years dedicated to the Armenian past of a certain geographical area (especially because many of them have culled information from memory books highlighted here)

manuscripts or unpublished books of a similar nature that, while respectable in number, are no longer available to the reading public. Of such unpublished works, we are familiar with those devoted to Musa Dagh, Çemişkezek, Vardatil/Varditel village (present-day Yazıkonak, near Harput/Kharberd), several works on Anjrdi (present-day Topkapı, near Arapgir), Zakar village (near Izmit/Nicomedia), Aslanpek (present-day Arslanbey, near Izmit), Ovacık (near Izmit), Frnuz/Fırnız (near Marash), and others.

We must also remember that the books in this list deal only with areas within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, cities that are located in present-day Turkey but not during the Ottoman period (from the 19th century onwards) have been left out, such as Kars. Also not included are areas like Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, that were a part of the Ottoman Empire but aren’t a part of today’s Turkey.

Despite these limitations, we have made exceptions for certain types of publications, even though they do not fully correspond to our definition of a memory book:

books printed before the genocide that, in terms of content, are very similar to houshamadyan genre books published later.

school bulletins and other such material printed before the genocide.

family histories.

In our list, we have also factored in periodicals published by compatriotic unions or those in a similar vein that, in turn, are a rich source of material about the native homeland and partially supplement the information found in houshamadyan genre books.

Up until 1920, the Armenian press, especially the Western Armenian press, was quite rich in material dealing with the interior provinces, and published thousands of articles, letters of correspondence, bulletins, news items, travelogues, research findings, and ethno-folkloric samples. After the genocide, the diaspora press published personal memoirs of the native land and varied materials of historical significance. All of these are irreplaceable sources regarding our work, but they are not readily accessible to present-day scholars, especially since we do not yet have perfected bibliographical lists for them.

During our readings over the years, we have recorded thousands of articles and have compiled a rather extensive list of these materials that we may publish as a separate book in the future, attaching it to the bibliographical lists that we have already compiled of printed books and books of the compatriotic press/manuscripts.

We have personally seen an important portion of the books presented here and have prepared a description of them, relying mostly on our collection of similar books, in addition to the collections of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (Yerevan), the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Yerevan), and the National Library of Armenia. In the case of other books, we have used information culled from different bibliographical lists. [1]

We hope that this modest work of ours will be helpful to our historians and readers interested in the subject engaged in the study of the history and culture of the native homeland.

Karo Sasuni, Պատմութիւն Տարօնի աշխարհի [History of the Taron World], published by the Taron-Turuberan Compatriotic Union Central Committee, Beirut, Sevan Press, 1956 (1957 on the cover), 1252pp. 2nd publication, Antelias, published by the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, 2013.

Sahak Movsisian (Bense) and Soghomon Tarontsi, Հարք (Մշոյ Բուլանըխ) [Hark (the Bulanekh/Bulanık of Mush)], in “Armenian Ethnography and Folklore”, Vol. 3, Yerevan, published by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, 1972, 181pp.

Mesrop Krayan, Բալու. Բալուի կեանքէն առնուած պատկերներ, յուշեր, չափածոյ քերթուածներ եւ արձակ էջեր [Palu: Pictures, Recollections, Poetry and Prose Taken from the Life of Palu], Antelias, published by the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, 1965, 769pp.

Arakel Yeghikian and Soghomon Gabrielian, Պատմութիւն Կարնոյ կուսակալութեան Գղի գաւառի Չանախչի գիւղի [History of the Tchanakhtchi/Çanakçı village of the Keghi/Kiğı District of the Karin/Erzurum Province], Illinois, 1977, 220pp.

Ձայն Սեբաստիոյ [The Voice of Sebastia/Sivas], Central Committee of the Sebastia Compatriotic Union, New York, 1958-1973, previousely published as Lusaber.

Trdat Trdatian, Յաղթը եւ յաղթեցիները [Haght/Tuzhisar and its Residents], Boston, Hayrenik Press, 1959, 188pp. English translation – Dartad Dirtadian, Haght and the Haghtetsis, published by the Central Board of the Patriotic Society of the Village of Haght, 2008, 207pp.

[2] Editor’s note: In this list, books published in the reformed orthography used in the Republic of Armenia are referenced in the classical orthography. This was the wish of the author and our editorial board didn’t want to refuse it.